The 2026 Sovereign Asian Art Prize

Kurchi Dasgupta (b. 1974) is a Kolkata-born Indian artist, art critic, curator and actor based in Kathmandu, Nepal. Her practice revolves round painting, installation, text and performance. She has held many solo and group shows across the world, including biennales and art fairs. Her writing on contemporary South Asian art regularly appears in international and regional publications. She has curated exhibitions on contemporary South Asian art, is a member of AICA, is a gold medalist and holds a Masters in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University (Kolkata), translated Bengali classics and has also served as CEO of the Society for the Preservation of Satyajit Ray Films.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurchi_Dasgupta

Maryam was born and raised in a remote city called Zahedan in Iran. She came to Tehran to continue her education and got a bachelor’s degree in handicrafts and a master’s degree in art research, Since 2005, she has been working professionally and continuously in the field of sculpture, specializing in ceramics. Also, since 2009, she has worked in art universities in Iran and for a while in Mazar-e-Sharif Art University in Afghanistan. She has curated several exhibitions in Iran such as Nimrouz which was about Art of Afghanistan and was the most important one among all. Her main issue in art is the human identity and nature in the contemporary world beyond gender and nation. www.maryamkouhestani.com

Olga is a practicing independent curator. Her interests include socially engaged art, important socio-political issues and the development of the creative potential of the local commutions. Over the past 10 years, she has organized and conducted more than 60 exhibition projects in Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Switzerland, Italy, France, the UAE and the USA. Her projects include such festivals as ArtBat Fest, Urban Art Astana, Ashyk Aspan and others. An important project in the curator’s career is the educational initiative for young artists, the School of Artistic Gesture. She is currently running Art&creative Foundation.

www.artandcreative.kz/en

A jewellery designer and art history major by training, Wei Ling has been duly recognised for her contribution and efforts towards the development of the Malaysian art scene, through numerous awards and nominations. In 2018, she was appointed by Malaysia’s Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture (MOTAC) to curate and spearhead the country’s first pavilion at ‘The 58th La Biennale di Venezia (Venice Biennale)’.

Aung Myat Htay is a Yangon based Artist, writer, Independent curator and former lecturer at National University of Art and Culture. He is an ACC grantee artist for 2014 research grant in New York and have been residency in Japan, India, Germany, Indonesia and Vietnam since 2010 to the present. He expresses social messages in contemporary sense and his works presented in several regions of Asia, Europe and US. He founded SoCA contemporary art project and published art books, art documentation series and research papers. He curated local and international art program, exhibitions and workshops actively since 2013. www.aungmyathtay.com

Hit Man Gurung is an artist and curator based in Kathmandu by way of Lamjung. His diverse practice delves into human mobility, historical frictions, and post-revolutionary complexities. Rooted in Nepal’s recent past, Gurung’s artistic practice intricately reveals interwoven kinships and the exploitative tapestry of capitalism across geographies. His narratives powerfully depict migrant plight within a dehumanizing labor system, exacerbated by an indifferent nation-state. Intertwining Indigenous methodologies, Gurung Ingeniously reshapes contemporary artistic practice. Notably, he co-curated Kathmandu Triennale 2077 and curated the Nepal Pavilion, Venice Biennale, and ‘Garden of Ten Season’. hitmangurung.blogspot.com

Sangeeta Thapa founded Siddhartha Art Gallery in 1987 with eminent artist Shashikala Tiwari. She has curated over 600 shows of Nepali and international artists. She regularly gives consultations to collectors of Nepali art and initiates community art projects. She served on the Board of Patan Museum for six years and is a Fellow of the De Vos Institute of Arts Management. In 2009, she launched Nepal’s premier art event The Kathmandu International Arts Festival (KIAF) as a tri-annual event. In 2011, she established the Siddhartha Arts Foundation as a non-profit and organized the second edition of the Kathmandu International Arts Festival in 2012, through the Foundation.

In 2016, Ms. Thapa co-curated the first exhibition of contemporary Nepali art at the Moesgaard Museum in Arhus, Denmark.

In 2015, the Great Earthquakes struck Nepal causing a huge loss of lives and damage to homes and heritage sites. Taking this into account the third iteration of the Festival was postponed to 2017. In 2016, the Foundation decided to morph the Festival into a Triennale format and was recognized by the Biennale Foundation in Italy. The 2017 edition was curated by Philippe Van Cauteren from the S.M.A.K. Museum in Ghent, Belgium. The 2020 edition was also postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic and took place in March 2022. The edition was led by the artistic director Cosmin Constinas from Para Site Hong Kong and Nepali curators Sheelasha Rajbhandari and Hitman Gurung.

In 2021 , as a precursor to to the Triennale a selection of the works were showcased at Para Site Hong Kong. Post the Triennale a selection of the works were showcased at SAAVY contemporary in Berlin. In the same year the Siddhartha Arts Foundation served as the co commissioner of the Nepal Pavilion at the Venice Biennale which featured the works of Ang Tsherin Sherpa. In December 2022 the Siddhartha Art Foundation showcased works by Nepali artists at the Kochi Biennale.

Ms. Thapa is the publisher of four volumes of poetry: Khulla Dhoka, Nirantar Khulla Dhoka, A Thousand Earths Thousand Skies, and Even the Moonlight can Burn. She has written a book on the drawings of Nepali artist Manuj Babu Mishra entitled ‘In the Eye of the Storm’ and has written essays on contemporary Nepali art in the Gallerie Magazine (India) and for the Nepal Art Now exhibition catalog printed by the Welt Museum, Vienna. She has also contributed her essays to Telling a Tale, a publication of women’s’ narratives, Nukta Art Magazine (Pakistan), and the VOW Magazine in Nepal. Ms. Thapa has been invited in the capacity of a speaker to Art Basel Hong Kong, New North-South Dialogue organized by the British Council and Manchester University in Sri Lanka, the Asian Curatorial Forum Dhaka, and to a panel on South Asian art organized by the Habiart Foundation, New Delhi.

In 2023, she received the President’s medal ‘Kala Sumbardhak Award’ for her contribution to uplifting and supporting the arts scene in the country and in the same year received the ‘Kala Prabhandak Award’ from the Nepal Academy of Fine Arts in recognition for promoting the arts of the country over 35 years.

Tim Etchells

Tim Etchells has spent the last 30 years creating and managing Events and Fairs all over the world. From The Good Food Shows to London Fashion Week to Art HK, Tim has worked in numerous different industry sectors across different countries. In 2013 Tim launched Sydney Contemporary initially on a biannual basis. Having established itself as the largest international art fair in Australasia, Sydney Contemporary moved to an annual cycle in 2017. Tim’s art fair portfolio includes ART SG (Singapore), Taipei Dangdai (Taiwan) and Art Central.

India Ford

India Ford is the Fair Manager of Sydney Contemporary, supporting the planning and coordinating the gallery delivery for Australasia’s leading international art fair. India holds an MA in History of Art from the University of Edinburgh and has a background in contemporary and Indigenous Australian art, in commercial galleries and art centres. Her experience also spans events, high-end hospitality, non-for-profits, and financial services industries.

https://sydneycontemporary.com.au/

Amra has been contributing reviews and essays to local and international art publications since 1991, and currently writes for Daily Dawn. Her extensive writing is based on research and commentary in order to locate/contextualize contemporary art in Pakistan. Her curatorial work reflects her research and interaction with artists through three decades, exploring curatorial strategies that respond to the context of culture, space, form amid revised conversations on appropriation. She is a co Founder of NuktaArt, a first bi-annual art publication from Pakistan from 2004-2014.

Rica Estrada Uson has served as Officer-in-Charge of the Cultural Center of the Philippines Visual Arts and Museum Division since 2015. She holds a Master’s degree in Arts and Cultural Leadership from Goldsmiths, University of London, through the University of the Arts Singapore. She is actively involved in various art organizations such as the Association of Greater Manila Area Museums, the Museum Foundation of the Philippines, and the Asia Pacific Network for Cultural Education and Research, among others.

Brian Curtin is an Irish-born art writer and educator. From 2007-18 he worked as an independent curator of contemporary art and now works on commission. He holds a Ph.D. in studio art from the University of Bristol and has been based in Bangkok since 2000. Brian’s work explores dialogues between contemporary art, Queer theories and studies in visual and material cultures. His commentary, essays, interviews and reviews have been published in Art Journal, Artforum, Art Asia Pacific, Circa, Craft Research, Flash Art, Frieze, Journal of Curatorial Studies and Parachute, amongst others.

www.brianacurtin.com

Lisa Botos has built a global career delivering art and culture for diverse entities, from foundations to artists to nations, including Swire, WYNG Foundation, and the Kingdom of Bhutan. In Hong Kong, she co-founded OOI BOTOS gallery and Art Unchained. In 2013, she served as guest curator for the Vladivostok Biennale of Visual Arts. As a senior editor at TIME, Lisa led an award-winning photo department. A founding partner of the advisory Private Partners & Co., Lisa counsels families on cultural legacy. She holds an MA with honors in international communication, focusing on visual culture, from American University, and is a fellow of Hong Kong University’s ACLP and BeFantastic ArtTech. Read more here.

Born and raised in 1980,Tehran, Iran, Sheida Ghomashchi works as an independent curator in Milan, Italy. She has been part of various projects including: Co-curator of “Dixit Algorizmi, The Garden of Knowledge”, the fisrt natioonal pavilion of Uzbekistan in Venice Biennale of Art, 2022.

Co- Curator of “ Dixit Algorizmi”, International exhibition, CCA, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 2021. Fellow at Floating University, Forensic Architecture Group, Berlin, Germany. Curator of “Archive Alive!”, Exhibition of Ramak Fazel, Kandovan, Pejman Foundation, Tehran, Iran. Fellow of “Ideas City – Detroit”, New Museum of New York, USA. Researcher in Urban Research program, BAUHAUS, Dessau, Germany.

Shormi A. is an art practitioner from Hong Kong. She was the Head of Arts at Duddell’s Hong Kong and has executed several public art projects including Carnival – fundraiser for Amnesty International HK (Hong Kong), Art in the Bar for CoBo Social (Hong Kong). She curated Code Blue at the Taipei Contemporary Art Centre and co-curated 在／不在 | Negation of You (Taipei) at Nanhai Art Gallery. She studied at the University of Hong Kong and completed her MA in Curatorial Studies at the National Taipei University of Education (Taiwan).

https://www.behance.net/shormia

Tanya is the co-founder of the website ArtWorldDatabase.com, a website dedicated to promoting and supporting Southeast Asian contemporary art. Before moving to London in 2020, she lived and worked in Singapore for 11 years where worked as an independent curator and published art writer. She holds a Masters degree from Goldsmiths University of London in Asian Art Histories and is dedicated to working with artists living in the diaspora and presenting curatorial projects as part of the Peruke Projects team. www.artworlddatabase.com

Daryl Goh is a startup-advisor, angel investor and art critic/collector who holds 2 Masters Degrees and authored Design Innovation for Everyone (2023). Daryl is also the designer behind Asia’s first-ever phy-gital retail experience – Zhuang: Home of Singapore Designers that kickstarted an industry trend towards digital retail spaces. The technopreneurship & fashion scholar previously started Singapore’s first free art residency, NPE Art Residency and has judged for multiple prominent art awards. www.darylgoh.com

For 40 years, Gun Soo Choi has been an image critic, photographer, and university professor. he has published 12 photographic books and held 10 individual exhibitions.

Born in Seoul, South Korea in 1969, she majored in painting at Seoul National University, Seoul, photography design at Hongik University, Seoul, and studied at the School of Visual Arts, New York, USA.

Her work had been featured in LIFE Magazine cover (2007), New York Times (2008), National Geographic (2017). Her works are the collections of Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Santa Barbara Museum or Art, and Philadelphia Museum of Art etc.

www.jeongmeeyoon.com

Godwin Constantine is a professor and Chairman of the Theertha International Artists Collective.

Tom Van Blarcom, who is CEO of TQPR Asia Pacific, a leading regional public relations consultancy, has been actively involved with art, and the arts, for over two decades, as a collector, a communicator, and an advocate. Aligning with artists, galleries and institutions, he has consistently and strongly supported the ecosystem that is the art community in Bangkok, and Thailand. Working as a judge for the inaugural RCB Portrait Prize in Bangkok, providing the back up for the Pulse Art Awards, offering guidance to young artists and new galleries, personally and through his firm (pro bono), Tom has regularly, and happily, put his money, and hard work, where his mouth is.​

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Born in the U.S., where he still votes, and a graduate of New York’s Wagner College, Tom has lived in Thailand since 1984, initially working in refugee resettlement. This followed stints in Saudi Arabia, and serving in the Peace Corps in the Central African Republic and Senegal. An active member of the Bangkok community, Tom has been on the Boards of the Thailand Business Coalition on AIDS (TBCA), ThaiCraft, and Soi Dog Rescue, served as the Communications Director of The Siam Society, hosted the television program “Thailand International”, and has written for an array of publications. He lives with his husband and four dogs in central Bangkok.